Selfish gifts
Subtitle: Senegalese women's autobiographical discourses
By: Lisa McNee.
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Published: 2000
Place of publication: Albany
Language: eng
Number of pages: 197
Subjects: Wolof literature -- Women authors -- History and criticism.; Wolof literature -- Senegal -- History and criticism.; Women and literature -- Senegal.; Autobiography in literature.
Description: "Offering Senegalese women's autobiographical discourses as an original contribution to the critical debate about identity and self-representation, Lisa McNee asks how Senegalese women represent themselves, rather than asking who has the right to represent them. Selfish Gifts describes and analyzes the public spaces for verbal self-representation that the Wolof form of panegyric (taasu) and written autobiographies offer to women.

In contrasting performances of taasu to autobiographical works written in French, McNee addresses important issues in literary criticism, folklore studies, and anthropology, and develops a theory of an African aesthetic of self-representation."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 153-191) and index.